Africa: Why we must fight for strong institutions:

Strong and independent institutions are the cornerstone of any democracy. Aspiring democracies in Africa must therefore endeavor to nurture a culture of institutionalism by investing and jealously defending strong and credible institutions and steering free from personality cults and deceptive charismatic autocrats. 

The era of African strongmen and despots seem to be in the sunset, but this may not be happening as fast as we would like. A new marque of leaders adept at using charisma, personality cults and tribal arithmetic to water down institutions is on the steep ascent. Even though strong democratic frameworks may already exist; there has been limited political will by the leadership to realize full implementation.

 The last decade or so has seen many African countries commendably transition towards multiparty democracy and open up democratic space, however the excursion towards institution building has not been as fast. 

Many African countries have threatened to roll back these gains by the subtle emergence charismatic and manipulative leaders who have used their popularity and personality to weaken institutions and undermine opposition in a bid to avoid any dissenting voices or infelicity with their regimes. Unfortunately; in many cases they have had a generous following of misguided supporters or tribesmen; who they have used to gain legitimacy, sustenance and a soft landing.

L’État cest moi…I am the state:

These are the famous words of a French monarch Louis XIV of France and these words in the simplest translation mean, “The state is me” or “I am the state”.

By saying this, the monarch was making himself the absolute personification of France as the supreme decision maker with nobody to challenge his sovereign authority. He was implying that he was everything in France. He was every institution: the legislature, the judiciary, the enforcement and the sovereign executive. 

This is precisely the Kind of thinking that the French sort to disband with the French revolution that subsequently deposed the monarchy and instituted “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen”. 

There is almost a direct correlation between autocratic rule and revolutions or coup d’états. And there are stark examples in Africa. There is need therefore for Africa to rise above autocratic and tyrannical rule and continue the march towards the building of strong and independent institutions; if it is to catch up with the rest of the world.

Among the institutions most affected are the election bodies, the judiciary, the opposition, Civil rights groups, the police and the media. It is rare to find free, fair and credible electoral bodies in Africa.

How can you lose an election that you have organized? How can you lose an election which you have single handedly selected the commissioners who then owe allegiance to you and know they can’t bite the hand that feeds them?

And even if your opponents are dissatisfied with the election process and the outcomes, where do they go next to seek redress? To the same judiciary which you have single handedly picked your stooges and cronies?

And suppose your opponents decide to seek their democratic rights by marching in the streets to protest the compromised institutions; you will be waiting for them with the police who owe allegiance to you and are there to do your bidding.

Many African countries are awash with complains of intimidation of the opposition. In any multiparty democracy, the opposition must be free to carry out its mandate which remains crucial in the preservation of democracy. Any government must be closely watched and kept on toes and reminded of its mandate to the people.

The opposition, the media and civil rights movements must therefore be given democratic space to act as a watchdog for the people. Any government that is oversensitive to criticism and dissenting views and seeks to manipulate, obfuscate or intimidate these institutions which are valuable for the conservancy of democracy should be considered an enemy of the people.

It has been a long and painful march towards Africa’s democratic transition. Africa must therefore stand its ground and resist without temerity any regimes that seek to derail or rollback our painfully acquired freedoms and rights. We must not accept to be ethnically or otherwise bifurcated by leaders who seek not what is best for us but rather what is best for them. We must defend our liberties and continue to build strong institutions for posterity.

Tribalism in Africa: Why our leaders cannot be brought to accountability

Africa’s progress towards true democratization has indeed been a slow and agonizing excursion. Tyrants and autocratic leaders like Idi Amin of Uganda, Sekou Toure of Guinea, Sani Abacha of Nigeria, Moubutu Sesseseko of Zaire who once presided over their nations with iron fists are long gone and seemingly curtains have closed on the age of African strongmen.  However a new breed of leaders adept at mobilizing tribal numbers and manipulating ethnic emotions has emerged and this severely threatens to roll back the democratic gains that Africa has realized in the last few decades. Tribalism is quickly finding its way to the top of the list of the maladies that plague Africa. Tyranny and authoritarian rule have been replaced by tribal politics as the biggest threat to Africa’s democratic transition.

In many African countries, tribalism has consumed the social fabric and become the center stage of all social, political and economic processes. In Kenya for instance, tribe has become the beacon behind which people rally, and in many cases a person’s surname determines his political opinion. Kenya’s post-election violence in the follow up of the disputed 2007 elections demonstrated how quickly tribal politics can degenerate into violence, and bring a country to the brink of anarchy. But what exactly is tribalism? How is it instituted in African politics and who benefits from it?

Tribalism is a state whereby loyalty to one’s tribe supersedes loyalty to the nation and by extension governs a person’s social, political and economic perceptions. Tribalism becomes institutionalized when it is practiced as government policy and the state uses tribe as a major dynamic in governance. In pre-colonial Africa; what we today consider as tribes were in real sense; nations.  In some cases, these nations were in a state of perennial conflict with one another. The colonizers took advantage of this rivalry between nations and instituted a policy of divide and rule to ensure that the task of colonization was easy. African borders were drawn; not informed by any sort of anthropological or cultural considerations but rather by the economic desires of the colonizers and the political rivalries between competing colonial powers. Needless to say that these artificial and arbitrary borders brought together communities that found it difficult to co-exist.

The founding fathers of Africa had a challenging task of forging nationhood by bringing rival nations together into single nation. This was a grim task, but certainly not insurmountable as countries like Tanzania and Botswana have demonstrated. However the same can hardly be said of many other nations in Africa. In Kenya for instance tribalism has hindered democracy to a prodigious extent. Political parties are not formed based on any ideological considerations but rather on tribal mathematics and ethnic loyalty. Tribal numbers have become the standard for political competition and leaders have exploited this for personal interests and material gains.

In turn, it has become a difficult task to bring these leaders to accountability, because they quickly recede into their cocoons and foster a siege mentality that turns any form of criticism into a crucifixion of their entire community when hard questions are asked. Tribalism as a political consideration does not advance any democratic ideals and thus; using it as a basis for political competition negates the progress towards true democratization. Somali is a stark reminder of what is possible when tribal or clan loyalty supersedes national identity. Africa must wake up and realize that tribalism is retrogressive and only serves to serve the parochial interests of a few individuals. It weakens institutions and promotes an environment of cronyism and patronage which ensures that accountability cannot be asked of our leaders who continue to act with utmost cupidity.